


sticks and stones may break my bones

by Duck_Life



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Lonely Avatar Martin Blackwood, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25565050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Martin uses old tapes of Jon's to push himself further into the grasp of the Lonely.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 44





	sticks and stones may break my bones

The cot that used to be in this room has long since been moved, most likely to the tunnels. Martin knows Melanie and Basira sleep down there more often than not, but he tries not to think about it. 

He tries not to think about any of them. His friends, his coworkers… his fellow hostages. The less he thinks about them, the better. Last week, he felt so bad that he brought Melanie a cup of tea. He thought Peter was legitimately going to slap him. 

Even without the cot, the “panic room” still feels somewhat… comforting. Reminds him of safety and security. Reminds him of Jon.

Right. He shouldn’t be thinking of Jon. That was the problem. 

Initially, the plan was to get into Peter’s good graces without actually falling for any of his schemes. Martin could get close to him, become a trusted confidant, and then use that leverage to stop the new Head of the Institute from sending any more employees into the void. 

And then, when Jon made his miraculous return, the plan shifted to include him. To keep him safe. To keep Peter away from him. 

Initially, the plan was the smile and nod and go along with whatever Peter said without  _ really _ listening to any of it. But it’s different now.

Martin can’t deny that the idea of the Extinction scares him. A fifteenth entity, ready and raring to manifest in the world and destroy everything that humanity is. He tends to take everything Peter says with several grains— buckets— of salt, but… But. He can’t ignore the statements. 

Adelard Dekker was a thorough investigator. Everything he’s written about in these letters, emails and statements seems all too real and all too imminent. Martin’s game of pretending to be an acolyte of the Lonely has swiftly become far more serious. 

Because if aligning himself with the Lonely gives Martin a chance to stop the Extinction… well, he has to take it. It doesn’t matter what he wants— what’s one life weighed against the human race? 

And it would be easy. He’s already in deep enough. It won’t be hard to shift from pretending to slip into the Lonely to actually slipping into the Lonely. And it’s… it’s for a good cause. So it’s alright. 

It’s just that he has to work a little harder now, to isolate himself. To cut himself off. If he’s really going to need the power of the Lonely, he can’t do it by pretending. He has to commit. 

Avoiding Jon to protect Jon, avoiding Jon precisely because he still  _ cares _ about Jon, is enough to fool Peter. But it won’t be enough if he needs the power of this dread fear entity. He needs to be genuine in this. 

Which means just ignoring Jon isn’t enough. He needs to… needs to remind himself why it’s better this way. Why alone is better. Why a life without Jon is… is better. 

Fortunately, he’s got plenty of fodder to feed his loneliness.

Martin slides the tape into the cassette player, fast-forwards through Jon’s dry, skeptical voice until he finds the right spot. And he presses play. 

_ “ — managed to secure the services of two researchers to assist me. Well, technically three, but I don’t count Martin as he’s unlikely to contribute anything but delays.” _

He rewinds, plays it back.

_ “I don’t count Martin as he’s unlikely to contribute anything but delays.”  _

Presses rewind. Presses play.

_ “Unlikely to contribute anything but delays.” _

Rewind. Play.

_ “I don’t count Martin.” _

Martin sits in the quiet, lets it soak in. He stops himself from trying to defend Jon in his own mind. If this is how he felt then, it’s how he feels now. He doesn’t “count” Martin. Martin can’t count on him. That certainty is comforting in a strange way. 

He moves on to the next tape. 

_ “I sent Martin to look into this ‘Angela’ character - not that I want him to get chopped up, of course, but someone had to. Apparently, he spent three days looking into every woman named Angela in Bexley over the age of 50. He could not find anyone that matches the admittedly vague description given here, though he informs me that he had some very pleasant chats about jigsaws. Useless ass.” _

Martin rewinds and plays it back, closing his eyes so he can let the words sink in.

_ “Not that I want him to get chopped up— _ ” Maybe he wouldn’t care either way. 

_ “Useless ass.”  _

_ “Useless ass.”  _

It hurts, hearing the words, like the pain of pushing on a bruise or digging into a hangnail until it bleeds. He keeps at it, letting Jon’s harsh words immortalized on tape press against him until he can feel the fog surrounding him. 

Jon doesn’t care about him. Jon never cared about him. Maybe no one does. 

It hurts, but it feels good, too. 

_ “— but it would have to have been Martin, wouldn’t it? I mean, anything goes wrong around here, it always seems to happen to him.” _

It always seems to happen to him. Is it bad luck? Or just because there’s no one out there who cares. No one who will miss him if he goes away for good. After all, he was trapped in his apartment for two weeks and no one tried to check up on him. No one dropped by with a cup of soup and a kind word. 

With Jon’s recorded cruelties whispering in his ear, it’s so, so easy to let himself fade. The room around him grows gray and distant— or maybe that’s him. Maybe he’s the one getting farther away, becoming more mist than man. 

Jon becomes farther away, too. He’s practically across the hall, but he’s also so unreachable. He’s practically across the hall, but he’s always preserved forever in these tapes, his cold sneer evident in the tone of his voice, in the way he says Martin’s name. His distaste, his ridicule, his scorn. Martin drinks it in. 

He wonders if Peter would be proud. But he doesn’t really care either way. 


End file.
